Support this campaign!

CHORUS Agencyis a network of pro bono advisors who are supporting exceptional progressive leaders running for state legislature and Congress.

We are working to change the culture of politics by removing barriers for a more diverse pool of authentic leaders to run for office and win.

Your contribution will help us file as a 501c4 organization (a political nonprofit), hire a small team to support our work with 20 campaigns in 2017, and create a free library of resources for running winning campaigns.

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WHY IT MATTERS

Authentic leaders are out there. There are just many, many barriers in place that keep them from running and winning elections. Among those barriers is the cost of necessary support. This is particularly true for low-resource, congressional and state level races — the places we need strong leaders the most. The best strategists in the business simply aren’t affordable for most candidates. Until now.

We believe that we can change the culture of politics and strengthen our democracy by developing and supporting a new generation of progressive leaders to serve in elected office. We support candidates who are reflective of their districts, demonstrate leadership in their communities, and are committed to our core values: equity, opportunity, inclusion, and justice. But this is about more than making an impact through policy; we seek candidates who will change the tone and tenor of the dialogue, usher in a new age of inclusive leadership, and inspire us all to answer the call of citizenship.

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HOW IT WORKS

We’ve carefully vetted and assembled a team of strategists who want to support authentic leaders who will drive long-term change. These pro bono advisors have committed to full-day strategy sessions and/or sustained weekly support throughout an election cycle.

Every advisor on our team is a leading expert with multiple cycles of experience. We specialize in strategic planning, data and analytics, grassroots organizing, digital engagement and technology.

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OUR PARTERS AND OUR CANDIDATES

We are partnering with recruitment organizations like Run for Something and First Ask to identify candidates that are a match for our support. Then, we vet and match them to our strategists. To learn more about our candidate selection criteria, visit the candidate pageon our site.

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THE DIFFERENCE YOUR CONTRIBUTION MAKES

Your contribution will help us:

File as a 501c4 organization (a political nonprofit)

Hire a small team to support our work with 20 campaigns in 2017, and scale it up to 60 campaigns in 2018

Create a free library of tools and resources for running winning campaigns

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With your help, we can flip the consulting industry's incentive structure, reduce the role of money in politics, and provide necessary support to the candidates with the most potential, instead of the candidates with the most cash on hand.

Let's do more than build the progressive bench - let's help them win.

Show your support for this campaign by endorsing it and sharing why!

Thank you for endorsing this campaign!

Recent endorsements

“I want to help good ethical candidates to take over the reigns of our govt from corrupt and narcissistic Republican Reps and Senators at local, state and federal levels. I am not a politician or in govt; just a concerned citizen who feels helpless with what is going on otherwise and wants to support good candidates .”

“Really excited about the potential here to step up our grassroots game, with experienced field veterans training the next generation of campaigners. This is how we stay resilient.”

I’m writing with a very big and very positive update. When Chorus Agency launched back in June, we set out to build a community of support that would help to usher in a new generation of leadership and change the culture of our politics. In the last two months, we have assembled a network of veteran campaign strategists to offer pro bono support to three incredible candidates for US Congress.

Meanwhile, the Arena — an organization that launched last November with the mission of activating the next generation of civic leaders — held three summits around the country that brought together thousands of current and future candidates, activists, entrepreneurs, and operatives. The Arena is serving and supporting these leaders as they run for office in record numbers, lead campaigns, organize in their communities, and found new and needed institutions.

Today, we are thrilled to share that Chorus Agency and the Arena are joining forces, under the umbrella of The Arena PAC.

Together, we will expand our support to candidates across the country. We will ensure that these new leaders have the best advocates, coaches, and resources working for them. We will reshape our political and civic landscape and channel today's unprecedented wave of civic activism into enduring political change.

By the end of 2018, we will:

Support over 30 of the most promising candidates around the country to victory through The Arena Fellowship. We will announce our first Fellowship class the first week of September.

Welcome over 3000 political newcomers into The Arena community -- in person -- through The Arena Summits and build a more robust membership system to serve those newcomers.

Highlight the promising work of over 100 of the next generation of civic leaders around the country through our Spotlight program.

What does this mean for your CHORUS Agency Crowdpac pledge?

Tomorrow afternoon (Friday, August 18th), Crowdpac will convert the pledges and redirect them to the Arena PAC. If you wish not to be charged, please contact support@crowdpac.com in the next 24 hours.

Our team is excited for the next chapter, and I hope you are too. Thank you for all of your support, and we’ll see you in the Arena.

Today, we are proud to announce our support for our very first CHORUS Agency candidate, Andy Kim. Andy is running for Congress in New Jersey's Third District. Please visit his site to learn more, join us in supporting his campaign!

ANDY'S STORY (in his own words):

I grew up in the Third District. It's where I hit my first home run, earned my first paycheck, and received an incredible public school education that helped me become a Rhodes Scholar, a diplomat, and a father.

I took what I learned in New Jersey to serve our nation as a career public servant. From the White House I helped our nation lead a global war against ISIS, from our U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan I served as a strategic adviser to Generals David Petraeus and John Allen, and from the Pentagon I helped our nation build a strong military and provide for our brave service men and women. I was a career public servant, not a political appointee, and I’m proud of having worked with both Democrats and Republicans focused on keeping our nation safe. I have and always will put the nation and the American people above politics.

My wonderful wife Kammy and I have a trouble-making two year old boy named Austin with another little guy on the way. Being a young family is an adventure every day. When my parents were my age, they were a young family who moved my sister and I to the Jersey Third because of the strong public schools. My parents, both immigrants who moved to America to build a better life, never had much money in the bank, but they worked hard to provide a stable and secure future for us. I will never forget what they and the supportive community here in South Jersey did for me.

I believe our stories have a lot in common as we are all working hard to forge a life full of love and purpose. Right now, our paths are brought together not just because of crisis and turmoil, but also because of our belief that we can work together to build something better. This is our fight, our campaign, our movement, our future.

We want to take the opportunity to shout out three of our new partner organizations. We hope you'll support them too! In this political climate, it is more important than ever that we collaborate to harness our collective power.

Run for Something recruits and supports talented, passionate young people who will advocate for progressive values now and for the next 30 years, with the ultimate goal of building a progressive bench.

First Ask is a progressive activist and candidate recruitment initiative. They're working to close the gender gap in national politics by increasing the number of women running at local and state-levels across the country.

RagTag is a volunteer team of technologists, tech enthusiasts, political and community organizers, and activists building progressive change from the ground up. Ragtag volunteers help progressive groups and candidates with tech consulting, product design, development, support, and education so that their partner organizations can focus on movement-building more efficiently and with broader impact.

We are a group of experienced campaigners, organizers, strategists, and consultants who are volunteering our time to support authentic first-time candidates running for office.

We've included the bios of our founding team below!

Kate Catherall, Founder

Kate Catherall is currently a Senior Vice President with 270 Strategies. In the last four years, Kate has worked with more than 24 causes, companies, and campaigns to develop their organizational strategy and leadership development programs. Most recently, her portfolio has focused in the domains of issue advocacy and civic engagement. Kate has facilitated advanced-level trainings in Africa, Asia, Europe, Central America, and the Middle East, with participants hailing from more than 40 countries.

For the last three years, Kate has served as a reviewer for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Cities Challenge. In 2016, Kate partnered with the Knight Foundation as the co-author of a study on sparking civic engagement entitled, “The Role of Human Relationship in Moving People to Action.”

While recently Kate has focused mainly on causes, her roots are in electoral organizing. She has worked five election cycles including a congressional campaign, a gubernatorial campaign, a senate campaign, and two presidential campaigns. Prior to joining 270, Kate served as Deputy Field Director for President Obama’s 2012 campaign in Florida. There she built and managed a staff of 240 organizers who recruited more than 80,000 volunteers and registered 110,000 voters in the final ten months before the deadline.

Kate holds a B.A. in Political Science and Theater and Drama from Indiana University, and is a native of Chicago. She speaks conversational Swahili, having lived and taught in East Africa sporadically since 2006. She enjoys film, the arts, and being outside.

SENIOR ADVISORS:

Luis Avila

Luis Avila served most recently as a Senior Vice President on the Engagement Team at 270 Strategies. Prior to that, he was the national program director at Stand for Children, a nonprofit grassroots advocacy organization dedicated to improving public school education, where he worked with immigrant parents to mobilize thousands of voters to protect funding for their children's schools. While at Stand, he was awarded its National Leadership Award for his work supporting, coaching, and developing organizers around the country.

Luis was a field organizer in New Mexico for President Obama's 2008 campaign and field director at Arizona State University's ADA Parent Education Program, where he oversaw a program that united parents and teachers to transform the educational experiences of children at home and at school. Luis serves on the executive board at the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States and is on the board of TNTP, an organization focused on ending the injustice of educational inequality. Additionally, he is a NextGen Fellow at the Pahara-Aspen Institute. Luis was recognized in 2009 by Latino Perspectives Magazine as one of the 40 Hispanic Leaders Under 40 for his work in education and parental involvement programs for low-income families. Luis also received the Latino Advocacy Champion Award in 2014 by Profiles of Success for his work in the defense of immigrant rights.

Born in Culiacan Sinaloa, Mexico, Luis founded a youth publication in Queretaro at the age of 16 to give students a chance to voice their opinions on social and political issues. His passion for giving others a voice eventually brought him to the United States, where he has spent the better part of his career working to improve the quality of life for people in his community by expanding access to quality education.

Geoff Berman

Geoff Berman is currently VP of Programs at Educators for Excellence, a not-for-profit dedicated to building a more equitable public school system. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up moving around a lot. He has lived in Brooklyn, New York, for more than 20 years. He initially became involved in the battle to improve our nation’s education system as an attorney representing a consortium of alternative New York City public high schools.

In 2008, Geoff joined then-Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, traveling to states around the country throughout the primary campaign and general election. He went on to serve as New York state director for the president’s grassroots political organization, Organizing for America. During the Obama re-election campaign, Geoff served as deputy national training director and then deputy national GOTV director.

Prior to joining Educators for Excellence, he served as a senior advisor to Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, working to pass common sense gun violence prevention legislation in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Geoff has a Juris Doctor and master’s in political history from the University of Virginia, and a bachelor’s in history from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Reggie Cardozo

Reginald Cardozo Jr. has recently assumed the position of Transition Advisor to the Chairman at the Florida Democratic Party, where his focus will be helping elect Democrats to public office throughout the State of Florida.

Most recently Reginald was the Deputy State Director for the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign in Florida. There, he oversaw and advised leadership of key state departments including; Political, Field, Data, Voter Protection, Coalition Building, Communications, Digital, Surrogate and Principal Travel. Along with other campaign leadership, Reginald worked to interpret analytics, offer on-the-ground knowledge, oversee crisis management, and determine best course of action for campaign strategy.

Previously, Reginald served as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) in Washington, D.C. Cardozo joined GSA as White House Liaison in July of 2013, where he helped manage GSA’s relationship for the White House and other federal agencies. Prior to joining GSA, Cardozo was the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Governor of Puerto Rico. Reginald also served on the Presidential Inauguration Committee in late 2012 an early 2013, where he was a Director in the Office of Ticketing and Credentialing.

Formerly, he was the Political Director for President Barack Obama’s 2012 Presidential Reelection Campaign in Florida. In this capacity, he was accountable for campaign relationships throughout the state. Mr. Cardozo also worked as the Director of Governmental Relations for Governance, Inc. in Tallahassee Florida, where he advocated on behalf of local government municipalities/ counties, and quasi-governmental agencies in the Florida Legislature.

Lisa Conn

Lisa Conn manages the Electome, a machine learning project of the MIT Media Lab and Twitter aimed at providing an alternative to horse-race journalism. The only organization with access to Twitter’s full output of approximately 500 million tweets per day, Electome’s algorithms identify election-related tweets and classify them by issue, candidate, candidate followers, gender, civility, and more with 90+% accuracy, creating a unique picture of the issues voters care about. Through the Electome, Lisa's team provided briefing books and suggested questions to the moderators of the 2016 Presidential debates, built an exhibit for the Newseum, and published dozens of stories with media organizations covering the election including the Washington Post, CNN, and Vice.

Previously, Lisa was the National Organizing Director of Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us, where she pioneered a new model for organizing the tech community and designed a suite of digital advocacy tools including Push4Reform, Selfies4Reform, and BuiltbyImmigrants. She was Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin's campaign manager, and a Regional Field Director on President Obama's 2012 campaign in Florida.

In July 2017, Lisa will join the Global Strategy team at Facebook. She is currently an advisor at Hustle, where she previously ran business strategy.

Lisa studied Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, and is in the final semester of her MBA at MIT. She has been featured on Fortune's Best and Brightest MBAs list and was named a "Luminary" by the Future of People. Lisa grew up in Laguna Beach, California (like the show) and is the granddaughter of carnies.

Betsy Hoover

Betsy Hoover is a Founding Partner with 270 Strategies, leading the firm’s digital strategy practice. She helped launch the company after serving as director of digital organizing for the 2012 Obama for America campaign, where she was responsible for bridging the gap between online and online organizing.

Betsy has been recognized by Business Insider as “one of the top 50 people who are at the forefront of political innovation” and was featured on Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30: Law & Policy” list for her work on the president’s re-election campaign. Mother Jones magazine described her as one of “Obama’s digital gurus” with the role “of a community builder, helping channel enthusiasm online into fundraising dollars and volunteers.” Betsy has discussed the power of online organizing with audiences across the globe, including TEDx and Re:Publica, Germany’s largest conference on digital trends and strategies.

Betsy got her start as an organizer in 2007 and transitioned to digital in 2010. At 270, she focuses on women’s economic and health issues, technology for engagement, voter empowerment, and electoral campaigns. She’s passionate about building communities online around issues people care about.

Betsy is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and currently lives in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. She speaks Twi, a language she learned on a service trip to Ghana, and enjoys skiing, running, and music.

Marlon Marshall

Marlon Marshall is a founding partner at 270 Strategies. Marlon was Special Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Director in the Obama White House Office of Public Engagement, where he was a key player in a number of public engagement initiatives at the White House and led the on-the-ground enrollment effort for the historic Affordable Care Act. Marlon is currently a Fellow at the Georgetown Institute of Politics, where he leads weekly discussions with students committed to making politics work better. Most recently, Marlon served as Director of States and Political Engagement for the Hillary for America campaign.

Marlon has held a series of key positions in national Democratic politics and has worked in states with some of the most contentious election contests in recent history. As the Deputy National Field Director for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012, Marlon helped lead its unprecedented targeted voter registration and get-out-the-vote programs and was central to a held program that far outpaced previous efforts in 2008 and beyond.

After the 2012 campaign, Marlon was the Senior Advisor to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, where he helped lead a team that put together official activities for an estimated 800,000 visitors to the nation’s capital. Prior to joining the Obama campaign team as Missouri General Election Director in 2008, Marlon served as Field Director in Nevada, Ohio, and Indiana for the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. As National Field Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Marlon oversaw the team that designed and implemented field plans for targeted congressional races across the country. He was appointed the DCCC’s Deputy Executive Director before his departure to the 2012 Obama campaign. During his tenure as White House Deputy Liaison to the State Department in 2009, Marlon was ranked among The Root’s “Talented Ten” and dubbed “a quintessential bridge-builder.”

Saumya Narechania

Saumya Narechania has nearly a decade of experience working for and advising various organizations on campaign organizing, strategic planning, leadership, and management.

From the halls of the White House to community halls in Alaska and union halls in Florida, Saumya has overseen staff that range in size from two dozen to two hundred, and planned—from nuts and bolts to large-scale strategic vision—various events, trainings and programs of similar scope.

Saumya currently serves as the National issues Campaign Manager for Organizing for Action (OFA). He most recently served as the Get Out the Vote Director for For Our Future Fund (in Florida) and as the National Field Director at Enroll America. In his role at Enroll America, he oversaw all state field efforts related to Enroll America’s Get Covered Campaign. These efforts included providing digital assets to partner organizations, as well as leading the training and execution of getting over one million in-person appointments for consumers seeking health insurance under Obamacare.

Previously, Saumya served an integral role in the planning and launch of Enroll America’s state efforts including hiring and training senior leadership roles. Saumya has trained or spoken before the Gates Foundation, Cognosante, Legal Aid of North Carolina, University of South Florida’s Covering Kids and Families Coalition, among others.

Saumya’s background also includes multiple leadership roles for campaigns and organizations that scale quickly, including as Deputy Field Director in Florida for President Obama’s re-election efforts in 2012, and in President Obama’s White House as an Assistant Director in the Executive Office of the President.

Gabby Seay

Gabby is a long time organizer, campaign strategist and organization builder. Over the last twelve years, she’s advised campaigns, companies and causes looking to build their lists, deepen their relationships with supporters, and move them to take actions in their communities.

Most recently, Gabby served as a Vice President at 270 Strategies where she led a team of strategists that helped clients build better campaigns, organizations and messages. Prior to that, Gabby served as a regional campaign director for the Women's Equality Center, where she helped establish the organization's advocacy efforts to build long-term capacity among women's organizations and their allies.

Gabby has developed and led issue-based campaigns at the state and national level. As political director for President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign in the critical battleground state of Ohio, Gabby coordinated a record number of surrogates, including elected officials, Democratic operatives, and community leaders, to mobilize volunteers and turn out voters. At the Partnership for Working Families, Gabby worked to make transit and housing more equitable for low income communities and communities of color. Her experience also includes organizing faith, community, labor, and environmental groups as part of the Stand Up for Ohio campaign at the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. She spoke about her commitment to bringing communities together at a TEDxToledo talk entitled Unconditional Compassion.

Gabby earned a BS in Sociology and Africana Studies from the University of Toledo. While Gabby recently relocated to New York, she remains a proud Buckeye. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and enjoys cooking (and eating) comfort food, 90s dance parties, and spoiling her eight nieces and nephews.

Max Wood

Max Wood is the founder and CEO of Deck Apps, a software company focused on helping progressive causes and campaigns by making predictive analytics more accessible, affordable, and actionable.

At Deck, Max has built a set of tools that accurately predict which candidates specific voters will support using historic data instead of surveys. He has also built APIs and bots to help users build their own predictive models and run decentralized field programs.

Before starting Deck, Max worked in campaigns, consulting, and software. As Software Development Manager at EverFi, Max helped lead a global team of engineers in building software to teach critical life skills like financial literacy. As a consultant at 270 Strategies, Max built predictive models and web-based tools to help organizations reach the right people and make better decisions. In this role, Max saw the need for more accessible, scalable technology to help smaller campaigns and organizations.

Max has a Master’s degree in urban planning from Florida State University, where he specialized in affordable housing and population/economic forecasting. A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Max has an unusual appreciation for humidity and highways. He currently lives with his wife, Lizzy, in Washington, DC.

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Recent endorsements

“I want to help good ethical candidates to take over the reigns of our govt from corrupt and narcissistic Republican Reps and Senators at local, state and federal levels. I am not a politician or in govt; just a concerned citizen who feels helpless with what is going on otherwise and wants to support good candidates .”